Water for Elephants

Author: Sara Gruen

Genre: Fiction

Film tie-ins are convenient. If I know who the actors and actresses are, I immediately imagine them playing the same characters in the movie - despite the fact that I have never seen the film myself. This usually sets me up for a potential disappointment when I DO get to see the film, as some scenes are not played the way I saw it in my mind, and some lines are inevitably changed.

However, reading this book disappointed me in a different way. If I were in Reese Witherspoon's shoes, I would feel insulted at being offered to play Marlena from this novel. Imagine - an Oscar-winning actress who has played such diverse roles since her teenhood reduced to playing a one-dimensional part (but hang on, didn't she do the same for 'This Means War'?).

Marlena is a circus performer caught in a love triangle between the circus' seasoned animal trainer and the new circus 'vet'. That's about all there is to her, as the story is told from the vet's POV.

It is set in the 20's or 30's, and is told in flashback by the vet who is now languishing in an old folk's home. The circus is a travelling circus, criss-crossing America on a train to perform shows or acquire new acts from bankrupt competitors. One of their acquisitions is an elephant that the circus owner insists on being made the star attraction, despite not being able to follow instructions.

The premise is interesting, and the novel started off quite well, but halfway through the pace dropped and things began to get quite humdrum. It was only in the last few chapters that the action picked up again, but even then it became a tad too predictable.

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Author: Jennifer Egan

I was in the hunt for a book one Friday lunch break (things at the office were stressing me out so I had to resort to retail therapy 20 km away) but did not want a bodice ripper. The colourful cover attracted me, as did the golden circle in the bottom left corner. Pulitzer Prize winners must surely guarantee a good read, no?

Do not judge a book by its cover - or its first chapter. I was looking for a light, entertaining and easy romp. Like Kinsella. Or something semi-reflective like Nick Hornby (the allusion to music made me think of High Fidelity). What I got was rock and roll (or punk, to be more precise), divorce, suicide, illness, drugs, environmental issues. And ultimately, redemption.


Although the synopsis introduces us to Bennie and then Sasha, I related more to the latter. Bennie to me seemed too self-absorbed in only one side of him i.e. his passion for music - or are all musicians/music producers like that?

The book is like a collection of short stories, but it is also almost a novel. Each chapter has a different protagonist, in a different era, but through his or her tale you also get to know more about the previous protagonists. The format reminds me of another book I read a couple of years ago.

Because each chapter is told from a different character's POV, and the timeline is non-linear, it was a bit difficult to read. I admit to being stumped a few times when the narrative is told in the first person which happens to be a totally new character. The most interesting format (from a technical angle) is the powerpoint chapter. However the most poignant character to me is Rolph. His childhood innocence seems reflected in Sasha's son several chapters apart.
 
I found myself semi-quoting on line from the book:

If there are children, there must be a future, right?

Then I belatedly figured out that it was an allusion to the first line of Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" - I believe that children are our future...  Time may be a goon, but time also repeats itself.

The Night Bookmobile

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

My first ever graphic novel. It appeared in a review in The Star, and so made it to my wishlist. After a meeting in KLCC, I headed straight to Kinokuniya to acquire this, and I am very glad I did.

The story is about a woman who comes across a bookmobile in the middle of the night. The librarian is Mr Openshaw, who appears to know her on sight and keeps the bookmobile open 'from dusk till dawn'. As she steps into the bookmobile, she finds row upon row of all the books - all the STUFF - that she has read in her whole life. Unfinished reads appear as half-empty tomes, while books borrowed from libraries appear with their library stickers intact.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Mesmerized, she tells Mr Openshaw that she wishes to work with him, but he tells her it is impossible. Back in the real world, she gets a day job as a librarian, and eventually works her way up to become the Library Director, when she stumbles across the bookmobile for the last time. Once again she pleads with Openshaw for a position, and again he refuses. As she reaches her home, where she is surrounded by books and little else, she decides to end her life.

When she wakes up, she finds herself in the middle of a large library - READERS' HEAVEN! She sees Mr Openshaw, who gladly receives her as a librarian. When she asks to see her own collection, though, she is told that her books are no longer accessible.

"Only those who are alive can be Readers," Openshaw tells her. As a new librarian, she is assigned as Custodian of a new Reader - a young girl who is learning to read, and her first finished book is ready to be catalogued.

I found the idea of a bookmobile with your own personal reading collection immensely poetic and romantic, but to lose it after you die? Not so heavenly after all. However, judging from Mr Openshaw's habits, Custodians do get to read their Reader's collections. As long as they have the same tastes in books, that should not be such a problem.

If I had my own bookmobile, my Custodian would notice that my reading rate increases dramatically during my maternity leaves, and it would be filled with all sorts of material and paraphernalia. I remember reading anything and everything I could lay my hands on, including children's books and manuals. He or she would also note that I have lately acquired a habit of reading soppy romance novels when my husband is away and I am feeling lonesome. Either I am pining for him or pining for my youthful years as a teenager besotted with tall, dark and handsome fictional characters.

Read more reviews here.

Anne of Green Gables

Author: L. M. Montgomery

Book One of this year's reading challenge is an e-book that I downloaded onto my Samsung Galaxy S (Android smartphone). I read it mostly in bed, the first half within a few sporadic sessions and, after about a week's break, a single marathon session to finish the remaining half. By then it was 2 o'clock in the morning, and I began to worry that my eyes would appear puffy at work the next day from lack of sleep and excessive crying.

I do not quite know how to categorize this book - since it starts with Anne as a young girl it could very well be considered children's literature, although the series continues into Anne's adulthood. Of course, it is a classic like 'Little Women', which I have read as a young girl. And how I wish I had read this one as a young girl.

Anne is a red-haired chatterbox of an orphan girl. She is mistakenly delivered to live at Green Gables with the Cuthberts - Marilla and her brother Matthew - who originally wanted a boy to help them around the farm. With a wild imagination and an equally impressive vocabulary of big words, Anne would end up in scrapes and endear herself to the Cuthberts and their neighbours, making friends as well as envious enemies. Her imagination is not without virtue, though, as she has a big heart and is ambitious to do good. At the Avonlea school, she proves herself to be one of their brightest students and secures a place at Queen's Academy, where she wins an Avery scholarship to do a B.A. at Redmond College.

Just before she begins her studies at Redmond, Matthew dies of a heart attack and Anne finds out that Marilla's eyesight is failing. She decides to give up her scholarship and take up a teaching position in a nearby town, which allows her to visit Green Gables often. Knowing this, her previous schoolmate Gilbert Blythe - who earlier earned  Anne's wrath by calling her 'Carrots' - gives up his teaching position in Avonlea to Anne so she could stay with Marilla. The book ends with a promising 'bend in the road ahead'.

Montgomery writes very much the way I imagine Anne would write - her description of the places are full of verbal flourishes that paint a wonderful picture in your mind. What I loved the most, though, is Anne. The author clearly loves her protagonist, imbuing her with abundant energy and passionate feelings, along with a youthful optimism that makes the reader (i.e. me) long for those carefree days. It reminds me of the times when everything was possible and the big wide world was mine for the taking. When right and wrong was as clear as black and white. I think I cried as much for those days as I did for Matthew and Marilla.

Up in the Air

Author: Walter Kirn

This is the movie tie-in edition, although I have yet to watch the movie. As the movie made it to the Oscars, I figured the book must be worth a read.

The story is narrated by the protagonist, Ryan Bingham. He is a Career Transition Counselor - a coach for people who get fired. He is about to clock one million frequent flyer miles on his company's account, and plans to resign shortly after achieving this personal target.

"To Know me you have to fly with me." Thus Bingham invites us to join him on a marathon trip over 9 cities in 6 days that will make him the 10th person to reach the coveted mark. The trip is supposed to end in his hometown where he is to attend his younger sister's third wedding.

The story starts with Bingham expounding the features of Airworld and his career. You get the feeling it's not the sensation of flying he enjoys, but the experience of the different airports, the business lounge and the passing relationships with people he meets both on and off the ground. Any semblance to a more longlasting bond with another human being seems to unnerve him, as is evident in his conversations with and about his family. At the same time, the book shows Bingham's growing disillisionment with his job and the people he looks up to, be they management mentors or finance gurus.

Ultimately, Bingham is a lonely figure who uses his pursuit of air points to distract himself from his sad, empty life. By the end of the book, he realises he doesn't want all those points anyway, despite his earlier obsession with them. A bit like when you buy something you've been saving money for and find out it's not really worth all that.

And that's kinda how I feel about this book. The premise was interesting enough, and the back cover is scattered with good reviews on how it "deliciously lambastes corporate America" and rivals anything by John Grisham. But it doesn't really have much action and not so much a lambasting - it felt more like a half-hearted slap that missed its mark. Halfway through Bingham is called in by his family to search for his missing sister, and that's where Bingham, or rather Kirn, starts losing it. Events that were building up throughout the plot seem to be easily dismissed in the end - the business parable he was writing, his speech at GoalQuest, the dream job at MythTech, even the million airmiles.

Or maybe that is the intention of the author, to show the futility of it all as we run along in this rat race. Pretty depressing for anyone with a career.

I'm now looking forward to the movie, more than before I read the book. I've read that it's better than the book, or at least different. Let's just hope it's not as sad. Otherwise I really need to perk myself up with a Judith Mcknaught historical romp.

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